Day 170, Paris, France
We make our favorite Thanksgiving recipes no matter where we are. This has been a bit of a stretch in some countries we’ve lived in, but in Paris we thought it would be easy. This year we are cooking in a typical European apartment kitchen, which means there is enough counter space for our American sized coffee maker and a baguette. Since we knew we’d be in Paris over Thanksgiving and Christmas, we chose this apartment for its full-sized oven, which is not common here. We had to buy baking dishes and still can’t find measuring cups or spoons.
Like many others at Thanksgiving, we like our pumpkin pie. At home around mid-November, we can walk into any grocery and find a pallet of cans of pumpkin pie filling, either with spices or without. If throwing that into a ready made pie shell is too tedious, you can grab one already made from the bakery.
At our local grocery the Carrefour we managed, with only a few substitutions, to get the ingredients we needed, except for canned pumpkin pie filling. We asked the grocery stock person if they had it and they kindly showed us a pumpkin. For me, that’s similar to pointing at a cow under a Cacao tree and calling it chocolate milk. I know where it originates, but have neither the skills nor the inclination to make it so.
Clearly in this dire situation, we needed more of a North American mentality, less of the French fresh cooking from scratch mindset. Where could you find such an ingredient, but at an American food store. We took the Metro to Rue Saint Paul in one of the older parts of town, with its expensive vintage and nostalgia shops.
We found a store, ironically named Thanksgiving, appropriately stuffed with Americans. Parked in front was a white refrigerator truck full of pre-ordered turkeys. The check out line looped from the counter, out the door and around the corner. The only way you could shop was to get into the check out line when you entered the store with an empty basket and choose items as you inched forward to the register. Boxes full of canned pumpkin filling were by the door, so we didn’t have to wonder as we inched through the store if they had what we wanted.
For those without ovens, ready made pies were selling for $33, but those were long gone. If you want a taste of home during the holidays, there’s a price to pay, and many do. We struck a compromise between our nostalgia and our thriftiness and paid $4.40 for the pumpkin pie filling, $3.90 for the condensed milk, spices and pie shells on top of that. It’s not a thirty dollar pie, but not a cheap one either.
The woman who owns the Thanksgiving shop has been in Paris for thirty years and has had the store for 26. She understands how nostalgia is linked to food; it’s been the foundation for her success. She knows what Americans will and won’t pay during episodes of homesick taste buds. Apparently they will pay $2.20 for one Twinkie, $4.40 for a box of mac and cheese. Other common craves according to the shelves are marshmallows, syrup, beef jerky, cake mixes, icing, Cheetos, sugar cereals, baked beans, BBQ sauce, Twizzlers, and Jelly Bellys. As much as I might want to rise above nostalgic eating for times other the holidays, I know eventually I’ll slink back there for a pricey bag of Cheetos.
We returned successfully from our search for pie ingredients. Now we cross our fingers and hope that we can effectively overcome the communication barrier between us and our extremely fickle French oven. Then we will have our little taste of home this Thanksgiving.
My other Thanksgiving post http://www.gotraveloco.com/thanksgiving-day-soup/